'You will have to decide if you will be protecting or arresting us,' resident says

By Anthony Hahn

Staff Writer

Posted:
01/17/2017 09:32:05 PM MST

Updated:
01/18/2017 09:06:34 AM MST

Golfers play a round at the Vista Ridge Golf Club with a drilling rig in the background in Erie in 2014. Lafayette leaders tabled an ordinance that would sanction non-violent protests and acts of civil disobedience against fracking operations. (File photo)

The decision, which was stalled on first reading to an unknown future date due to a lack of council members in attendance, came in front of an emotional and unwavering standing-room-only crowd that battled for nearly three hours of public comment over the future of fracking within Lafayette.

"We are not afraid of you — none of these people out there are afraid of you," Cliff Willmeng, of East Boulder County United — the group that drafted the "Climate Bill of Rights and Protections" — said Tuesday night to representatives of Colorado Oil and Gas amid a chorus of cheers.

"We can't avoid this fight," he added. "It's in our living room right now. It's not one of those times in history where being afraid is going to help you."

"With every fiber of my being I appeal to you to please pass this climate bill," Louisville resident Paul Bassis said. "Do it for your children, for our children, for the future. You have the opportunity to not just stand on the right side of history, but you can make history."

The virtually unprecedented ordinance — a similar bill passed last year in Grant Township, Penn., the country's first and only case, offering Lafayette leaders the sole successful legal model — would essentially legalize acts of civil disobedience and non-violent direct action protest and would offer unparalleled immunity from arrest or detainment.

"It's time to throw off the yoke of tyranny," resident Stephanie Small said. "If the laws are unjust, we must disobey and change them. There are hundreds of us now, but soon there will be thousands.

"You will have to decide if you will be protecting or arresting us," she added.

Skeptics of the ordinance, however, have pointed to its far-reaching implications and dissent of the state's command over oil and gas development.

"What I see here are oil and gas consumers that want to shut down one part of oil and gas — the extraction part," said XetaWave owner Jonathan Sawyer, a company that counts oil and gas operators among its customers and cited Lafayette's 2013 ballot measure as a reason not to relocate to the city. "If you really feel oil and gas should not be here, start talking about the consumers and stop making oil and gas the villains here."

Critics have come from the community's own government. Most notably, Lafayette City Attorney David Williamson, who indicated earlier this month that most of the bill's language was "unenforceable" and perhaps even unconstitutional.

"This ordinance is so extreme," Dan Haley, president and chief executive officer of COGA, said in a statement Monday morning, "even the city's own attorney says it's illegal and unenforceable. City Council should reject the measure and have a real conversation that allows us to address any issues they have in a meaningful way.

"Proposing absurd measures such as this are merely stunts that waste Lafayette taxpayer resources and time," he added. "As an industry, we are at the table and ready to listen, but this ordinance is not the Colorado way of finding collaborative solutions."

The bill's far-reaching implications would almost immediately strain the limits placed on the city's home-rule authority, according to its opponents.

Sixty percent of Lafayette voters voted yes for a home-rule charter amendment in 2013 to establish a Community Bill of Rights that, among others things, banned fracking and other underground extraction — prior to COGA's suit to overturn the ban.

The ordinance's future approval could spur another suit from COGA, though Willmeng says a law firm specializing in environmental issues has offered the town pro-bono representation if that day comes.

Council members Stephanie Walton, Alexandra Lynch and Mayor Christine Berg were not in attendance Tuesday night.

Knights pick up first playoff win since '14BOULDER — This year's Fairview boys basketball team sure is full of surprises.
After losing five of their first eight games, the Knights rebounded to finish the regular season on a 13-2 run and found a way to win the Front Range League regular season championship. Full Story

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story